Greetings From New York City
Welcome to the Bruce Ellman Theatre Sound home on the web.
2012
I don't usually "blog," but since it's way past time for me to update this website I thought I'd write a bit about some interesting projects from last year.
2011
- Madame Tussauds
- The Adventures of Hershele Ostropolyer
- The Gravesend Inn At City Tech (or "The Good")
- The Gravesend Inn presentation at AES ( or "The Bad, and The Ugly)
The Refurbishment Project
The original 11-year-old MTNY audio system, partially designed by sound designer John Leonard and his staff (the "good" part of the system), was a distributed system routed through eight Richmond Sound Design 16-channel AudioBox playback/routing devices. Each of the AB's fed different "pods" throughout the facility. When I came on board half of the AudioBoxes weren't on line either because an exhibit had been removed, or because that AB had failed. The off-line AudioBoxes had been replaced by a gaggle of DVD players that had to be started up each day. The DVD players were inserted in various points in the audio system and were patched directly to amplifiers. The original show-control system too was mostly off-line. Daily system startup consisted of following several checklists of equipment turn-ons.
I was tasked with, besides updating the existing audio system, also restoring the original sound design. Further, it was requested that everything should be run from a single computer. Whilst, as I discovered later, a low-level format of the failed AB's hard drives could resurrect those devices fully, it was more prudent and cost effective to replace the out-of-production AudioBoxes with their software equivalents. I also needed to design in external playback capability which I did by using a Yamaha 01V96VCM to route audio to the SM/S CPU's.
When we began the project, though I was working for Richmond Sound Design, I still looked at other options besides RSD's AudioBox replacement software in case an alternative could better serve the client. Richmond Sound Design has always espoused a "Client's interests first" policy so examining other options did not present a problem. However, it was immediately clear that any of the other options would have meant a major re-programming of all of the audio for the entire facility which would have taken many, many hours of reprogramming and redesign to recreate John Leonard's excellent original design. Using Richmond Sound Design SoundMan-Server software (along with SoundMan-Designer and SoundMan-Assistant) all of the original programming could be adapted, faithfully restoring John Leonard's original sound design at a reasonable cost.
For the record, the other audio options considered were QLab, SFX, and Medialon Manager. Medialon Manager was especially attractive because there is already an available SoundMan-Server MxM and it would have allowed for very powerful future show-control capabilities. However, Medialon Manager's drawbacks were additional cost for hardware, software and programming; additional staff training for in-house maintenance and programming; and what I considered most importantly, it would have meant changing the audio system from a "distributed" to a "centralized" system. The distributed system Tussauds originally had in place had already proven to be the best choice for their situation.
I did reduce the amount of playback devices by half by combining existing AudioBox programming in pairs, but to allow for future expansion I upped the total output count by 50% by replacing the eight 16-output channel AudioBoxes with four 48-output channel SoundMan-Server computers. The computers are all RSD AudioBox II HLX-4300 Servers each fitted with a MOTU PCI424 PCI card with two attached MOTU 24I/O audio interfaces.
In the beginning there were some serious glitches/bugs in the RSD software. I briefly considered biting the bullet, switching to SFX (since we already had the PC CPU's), and reprogramming everything, but SM/S developer Loren Wilton was able to get things right quickly enough. In the end, most of the original AudioBox programming, including all of the levels(!), translated perfectly, and, as of this writing more than a year later, the SM/S system has been operating flawlessly ever since.
The Spirit of New York
Both of these Tussauds projects were a bit different for me as I usually design content. However, it was great to work with UK based sound designer John Leonard who was on board to develop the content. I enjoyed having the opportunity to just concentrate on system design and programming especially since the SoNY project gave me the chance to be the kind of systems designer/engineer with whom I would like to work. So in the end John was able to simply e-mail me the audio files along with his usage descriptions. By the time he got to New York I had things more than roughed in to make him, and the client(!), happy.
As to the SoNY system itself, for purposes of consistency I used another (fifth) AudioBox II based system utilizing a PC server identical to the four used in the restoration project. Additionally the SoNY CPU serves as a controller for all the audio systems (figure1) and is also connected to the lighting system via MIDI to trigger several lighting effects.
The Tussauds control system has a web based GUI (figures 4, 5, and 6) that utilizes MIDI, MSC, and SySex commands. I cobbled the system together using a MIDI server (figure2), Bome's Midi Translator (figure3), a host of Midi-Solutions devices, and several closed-contact switches activated by guests to trigger specific events. It may not be the most elegant control system, but it is effective and so far trouble free. Besides being controlled by the SoNY computer each CPU is capable of being independently started or stopped using the SM-D (ABEdit) software (figure7).
(The pictures below do not show the final interface/programming, but they're close enough. During normal operation only the MTNY web pages, figures4-6, are seen by staff)
 (figure1 - click for larger image) |
 (figure2) |
 (figure3) |
 (figure4) |
 (figure5) |
 (figure6) |
 (figure7) |
For the refurbishment project I "repurposed" the already installed audio systems infrastructure which includes 36 QSC 4-channel amplifiers and more than 140 JBL Control Series speakers. For the SoNY exhibit I specified all Meyer self-powered speakers including 18 MM-4XPD miniature directional speakers, 4 UPM-1P small format speakers, and 2 UMS-SM subwoofers. Unfortunately, Meyer had yet to introduce their low-power versions of the UPM's and UMS's for if they had we could have saved the more than two weeks we lost waiting for the electrical contractor to run conduit to the UPM's and UMS's.
The highly directional MM-4XPD's work exceedingly well within my zone-based design and overall all of these Meyer speakers are extremely well suited for this type of installation.
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The Adventures of Hershele Ostropolyer
There's not much to say about this June remount of the show I designed the previous year. Again, it was a great cast, great fun, great music, and great people with which to work. I bring it up only because it was the first time I used Stage Research's RF-GURU software. This software made the wireless frequency management and wireless paperwork "easy-as-pie." Definitely the best $79 that I spent in 2011.
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The Gravesend Inn Haunted Hotel
The "good", the "bad and the ugly"
First, the "good."
I came aboard as the Haunted Hotel sound designer in Fall 2009 which was too late to make any substantive changes to that season's design. As such, my approach that first year was to upgrade existing effects and to try to find a stronger narrative structure on which to build for the future. I started by dividing the exhibit into six zones. The 2009 zones included (1) the 1930's infused audience queue area, followed by a transitional staircase to (2) a 1700's pirate burial ground, followed by (3) a 1920's aural landscape for the hotel "underbelly," followed by, (4) the 1930's-1940's "Seagate Passage" leading into (5) the 1940's-1950's maze of various rooms of the Gravesend Inn, and finally (6) the final audience exit area of a non-descript era. Once I defined these areas I then structured newly created audio landscapes to follow that narrative timeline.
The 2009 audio was delivered by two independent analog based audio systems, each servicing different areas of the exhibit. This provided challenges in executing transitions that happened in areas serviced by different audio systems. In some cases I had to program identical cues on both systems and then trigger them in synch. It wasn't pretty, but from that first year I learned what was needed to make the project successful.
In the Fall of 2010, I updated the audio to a single system design. I was able to achieve sufficient outputs from the one system by using, in addition to the 16 analog outputs of the two MOTU 2408 units, all of the 2408's available ADAT outputs. The light-pipe outputs were fed into two MY16-AT ADAT cards installed into the school's Yamaha PM5D Console. All audio was then routed through the PM5D. A Yamaha DM1000 was used as a Cobranet breakout box by fitting both it and the PM5D with MY16-CII Cobranet cards. The playback software continued, and continues to be, Stage Research's SFX (QLab could have been a good alternative. See John Huntington's Networking entries in his blog re: why we have stayed with SFX). With the new system, as well as new music composed by Prof. David Smith, the zones became better defined and the narrative structure of the Haunted Hotel was becoming realized.
In 2011, exhibit designers Chip Scott and Norma Chartoff introduced a new conclusion to the Haunted Hotel called "The Conservatory." This solidified the Haunted Hotel by providing a fitting, more satisfying conclusion to the walk-through attraction. The 2011 audio system was completely network-audio enabled using Audinate's DANTE protocol. Two DANTE cards (Dante-MY16-AUD) were installed in the PM5D console, and one each in Yamaha DM1000 and LS9-16 consoles. This configuration drastically reduced setup time which allowed for many sound design improvements and upgrades, as well as time for fine-tuning. The only glitches encountered were finding the correct DANTE settings for SFX. Stage Research's Carlton Guc was able to point us to setting the DANTE protocol bit-rate at 32. We also encountered some SFX buffering problems and found that setting the DANTE latency settings to maximum alleviated the problem.
Overall, I think we were all pleased with the end results. New features and further improvements for the Gravesend Inn are planned for 2012, and I'm looking forward to my fourth year as Haunted Hotel sound designer.
The Gravesend Inn Haunted Hotel
"The Bad, and The Ugly" (or, "My Out-of-Body Experience")
In 2011, for the first time in memory, the New York AES convention coincided with the opening of City Tech's Gravesend Inn Haunted Hotel ("thank you" to the AES members who dropped by for our "open house"). Because of this timing, Professor John Huntington, who did yeoman's work on designing and implementing the show control, networking, and video systems, suggested that we do a presentation at the convention. John and I came up with "Spooky Sounds: Interactive Audio Systems and Design for a Themed Attraction In An Academic Environment," which we proposed as an Engineering Brief for the 131st AES Convention.
We were to--and I think we actually did--present this on October 21, 2011, a day that for me will live in infamy.
The engineering briefs were limited to 15 minutes each and scheduled four to an hour with no prep time allocated before or between presentations. We were to be the third presentation. The first sign of trouble came when the first presenter was unable to get his laptop to interface with the Javits Center's projection system. Futile attempts to get things going ensued with me thinking, "Why didn't he test his laptop beforehand?" I mean, I had tested mine with two different projection systems at City Tech as well as with several other external monitors.
The second presentation went fine.
And then it was our turn and, you guessed it, my laptop also wouldn't work correctly with the Javits Center projector. John began our presentation while I struggled to get my laptop to work. To this day I have no idea what John said, but I do remember him turning things over to me. I introduced myself, that part went well, and then I realized, that without the PowerPoint presentation, I had no idea what I was going to say next.
I remember talking, trying to collect my thoughts, looking at hard copy of the presentation, and saying something like, "We in theatre find microphones to be anathema." The microphone was right in front of my face, I was vamping, and that's what came out of my mouth. From this point forward I have no recollection of anything else said, but I do have a vivid recollection of the inner monolog that went on in my head.
"Did I just say microphones are "anathema" in front of a room full of audio geeks?! That's not what I meant, but must plow ahead!" -- "Boy, this stuff is boring. Why am I doing this?" -- "Am I still talking? Why doesn't somebody stop me?" -- Finally, "Okay, let me try to turn this thing back over to John."
My laptop was working well enough for John to show some of the pictures he took of the Haunted Hotel and he spoke some more. Once again, I have no recollection what he said. Mostly what I recall is that it did not go well for me and that the next time I'm called on to do something like that I will be a hell of lot better prepared. A true "out-of-body" experience that I do not want to repeat!
What I meant to do that day was to show how conceptual (content) design drives system design and how the narrative structure of the Haunted Hotel and its evolving sound design dictated (and dictates) its audio systems design. In retrospect, under the circumstances, I should have just stated that last sentence and left the stage. I'm sure after that John's pictures would have sufficed.
(c) 2012 bruce ellman theatre sound